Archive for November 2009

And while you’re at it, get your eyes washed. I don’t watch the X-Factor often. I try not to, because the amount of crap that gets through to the finals gives me a nasty pain in my head and my heart sinks just a bit further into my stomach every year. This week, however, it’s Queen week, and if there was ever a singer I idolised it’s Freddie Mercury. What a cheek, then, that they would decide that in the month of the anniversary of Mercury’s death to let the contestants ruin what were beautiful, powerful, emotional and energetic songs the way they did. You know, I watched last week. What was Louis Walsh thinking? Ghostbusters? I’d rather watch a cat choking on its own vomit that see them perform the Ghostbusters theme again, and the sad thing is, in the right hands and with the right kind of showmanship, that theme could have been fun. John and Edward have neither talent nor showmanship, and believe it or not, they’re not actually good at rapping, either. The Offspring couldn’t have put how I feel about them in better words than this.

Really, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, how does a big old karaoke game count as entertainment, for television, no less? I mean, television isn’t great nowadays, but it’s not necessary to make it worse.

Whoever it was that decided that Stacey’s horribly edited version of Who Wants To Live Forever? (linked to Queen’s beautiful version) was passable needs a good kick in the face. Freddie didn’t end WWTLF? with a wail of “FOREEVEERRRRRRR!!” and neither should she have. The lyrics are so few that she could have sung every last one of them and still made it her own, and instead we got a monotonous repeat of “WHO WAAAANTS TO LIIIIVE FOREEEVeeEEEeeRRRRrrrRRrrrr!!?!” Well, let me just say, if living forever means having to hear Queen murdered by the finalists every year for the rest of my life, I certainly don’t want to live forever.

And how could you cheer that awful, puffed-out Don’t Stop Me Now? What is wrong with you, Britain? What’s wrong with Brian May and Roger Taylor that they didn’t hear how bad the singers were when they were training? They worked with Freddie Mercury, for crying out loud!

The worst by far, of course, were John and Edward. Louis has been bitching lately about how “waaaaaaaa everyone else is cheating and using songs I don’t know waaaaaa”. Well, you know something Louis, they weren’t cheating, but you certainly did. You had your boys go out there and destroy Freddie, David Bowie, and though I didn’t think it possible, they managed to destroy Vanilla Ice as well. What a hypocrite – using a song that wasn’t even a Queen song. Sure, it sampled a Queen song. But it wasn’t really Queen.

But then again, none of the performances tonight were Queen. They don’t even come close to Queen and Paul Rodgers, which to me is like a watered-down Queen in the first place.

Freddie Mercury will be 18 years dead on the 24th November. Do yourselves a favour on that day, British public, and go listen to some real music. Remember him as a musician by listening to a track that he is singing on, that he had creative influence over, that he helped write, don’t listen to the forced screechings of some talentless glorified karaoke singers. I’d bet that if Freddie hadn’t been cremated, he’d be spinning in his grave.

Oh, and not wanting to end on a down note, here’s a song by Queen I love :] Sung by Freddie, written by John Deacon: